Imagine 700,000Coca-Cola Human Rights Moments Every Year

A central
ethic of The Coca‑Cola Company and its bottling partners is to do the right
thing—every day.

Imagine the
power if, every year, the more than 700,000 associates in our system took one
action that mitigated a human rights impact of our business, or improved the
lives of the people in the communities in which they live.

We all have
had “human rights moments,” both inside and outside the system. When was your
first human rights moment? When was your most recent Coca‑Cola human rights
moment?

When I was 10
years old, I had a human rights moment, but didn’t realize it at the time. I
was visiting my cousin’s vineyard to help him harvest grapes. He needed
seasonal, migrant labor to help during harvest season. After a day’s work, the
migrants and their families cooked by campfire and slept on the ground or in
their cars.

Even as a
boy, this felt wrong to me. With money I earned over the next three years from
a paper route, mowing lawns, shoveling snow—and a loan from my dad—my family
built bunk houses and latrines that stand to this day for the migrant labor
families.

Of course, at
age 10, I was unaware of “human rights.” And I had never heard of the “Right to
Housing” in Article 25 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. What I intuitively understood is that we have a responsibility to
speak up—and to act—when something is not right.

Respecting
the basic human rights of all people around the world is a principle that’s
easy to believe in, but often harder to make a reality. Yet, it is essential to
sustaining the communities we serve and to our Company’s future.

Since I
joined The Coca‑Cola Company in 2005, I’ve experienced many human rights
moments. In business, as in life, doing the right thing is often not convenient
or easy. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it.

In fact, it’s
what we—and our great Company—stand for.

Ed Potter is director of global workplace rights at The Coca-Cola Company.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO) is the world’s largest beverage company, offering over 500 brands to people in more than 200 countries. Of our 21 billion-dollar brands, 19 are available in lower- or no-sugar options to help people moderate their consumption of added sugar. In addition to our namesake Coca-Cola drinks, some of our leading brands around the world include: AdeS soy-based beverages, Ayataka green tea, Dasani waters, Del Valle juices and nectars, Fanta, Georgia coffee, Gold Peak teas and coffees, Honest Tea, Minute Maid juices, Powerade sports drinks, Simply juices, smartwater, Sprite, vitaminwater, and Zico coconut water. At Coca-Cola, we’re serious about making positive contributions to the world. That starts with reducing sugar in our drinks and continuing to introduce new ones with added benefits. It also means continuously working to reduce our environmental impact, creating rewarding careers for our associates and bringing economic opportunity wherever we operate. Together with our bottling partners, we employ more than 700,000 people around the world.